Possibilities - Hancock, Herbie (CD 2005)

Herbie Hancock now 60 years old, decided to make an album after a three-year touring stint with the trio of Roy Hargrove and Michael Brecker.

Working with Starbucks of all things, to create a follow-up album to the eight-time Grammy award winning album "Genius Loves Company", seemed like a dream-away. Plus, who would have thought that the follow-up would be with Hancock? I didn't think so.

Hancock called his Starbucks album "Possibilities", cause there were many possibilities in collabarating with some of the best up-and-coming artists and some legends too.

The first song titled "Stitched Up", makes Hancock work with legendary young-veteran John Mayer, whose music has yet to be appreciated by some but is very appealing. This song however, might make Mayer consider switching over or even crossing over into the jazz area of music. His performance was definately appealing and very inspiring. He deserves a round of applause.

"Safiatou" features Grammy-winner Carlos Santana, and the first young artist of this album, Angilique Kidjo. With Hancock and Santana, it's not like when Santana did duets with another jazz legend, guitarist John McLaughlin or when he dueted with Rob Thomas. Hancock seemed like he had to play off Santana, instead of Santana playing off of Hancock. That was the bad part. The good part was Kidjo's performance, which was awe-inspiring and amazing.

Now, maybe the Mickey Mouse Club's ex-member Christina Aguilera's take of the song "A Song For You", makes Aguilera, the mexican-cuban-whatever she is, version of Norah Jones. Hancock, mentioned in an interview that when he worked with Aguilera, he really thought she sang really good. "She could sing, I couldn't believe it." I doubt that if this album does make it to next year's Grammy awards, that this song will be the lead. I didn't like it.

Multi-Platinum, Multi-Grammy award winner Paul Simon, deserves the best of the legends performance on this album. "I Do It For Your Love", was absolutely perfect, it was beyond perfect. I couldn't believe my ears, it was just simply poetic.

Now, I don't like critizing the multi-talented Annie Lennox, not after her hit "No More I Love Yous", but her performance on this album ,"Hush, Hush, Hush", was probably the most non-jazz, ultra-pop performance of this album, bare none. I don't think that she could do jazz, even if she had all the training in the world. Don't get me wrong, she is talented, it does show on this song, but it brings back Hancock's talents as a spoken-word album writer (i.e. Future2Future).

"Sister Moon" sung miraculously by Sting, has alot of greatness and potential. It has the potential to be the next "Every Breathe You Take". Sting, did almost the same thing here, with the concept not the sound. It was quite immaculate and very transcending, but does deserve some good credit.

The up-and-comers round out the bottom half of this album, even though Joss Stone, who is the most established of the young-breed delivers a breath-taking performance. "When Love Comes To Town", which also features Jonny Lang, was a purely-poetic and great ballad which could also cross-over to pop. But, nevertheless it was great.

"Don't Explain", with Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan. Well, for me, a die-hard Hancock fan, this song doesn't click. It missed a beat a couple times, but it does sound really good. They deserve the right to be here, it was a good effort.

It has been a long time, since Hancock did something with the third-highest Grammy winner Stevie Wonder, but it's about time these two got back together. The song that Hancock and Wonder chose was "I Just Called To Say I Love You", which was originally on the soundtrack to the Gene Wilder movie, "Woman In Red". This time however, Stevie doesn't sing. No, a young-breed singer by the name of Raul Midon. Great interpretation of the song, great vibes and great stroke, makes this song worth buying the album, bare none.

Finally, the jazz dies down with a twisted, yet elegant song called, "Gelo No Montana", with another young guy named Trey Anastasio. This performance might be better if it were done a little slower, but the feeling of the album and the hidden meanings are there, so it's not really a big problem.

In conclusion, Hancock delivered an album, after yet another sebaticle in his career (the first being 7 years between "Perfect Machine" and the quintet album "Tribute To Miles".), he did an amazing job and it shows. Working with people you are not familiar with is a tough job, but if you get it right, you can reep the rewards that come along with it.